Follow along and jump

The Transcript tab stays in step with the playhead, and works the other way too: click the text and the playhead goes there. Use it to find a moment by what was said, instead of scrubbing for it.

Menu: View ▸ Transcript
Keys: ⌃⌘T
Where: Inspector ▸ Transcript
Agent tools: get_timeline_transcriptset_playhead

The word being spoken

While the video plays, the word being spoken is highlighted. It stays lit through the pause after it, until the next word starts. Before the first word, nothing is lit.

The highlight follows the playhead when you’re paused too, so moving the playhead by hand lights the word there.

The text scrolls with playback

During playback the text scrolls to keep the spoken word in view.

If you scroll the text yourself, it stays where you put it for three seconds before it follows again. With playback paused, the text doesn’t scroll on its own.

Click a word to jump

Click a word to move the playhead to it and select it. The playhead lands on a whole frame. If the video is playing, it keeps playing from there.

The selected word becomes the timeline’s in/out range, so clicking a word replaces any range you’ve set. See Cut by deleting words.

Click a timecode to jump

Click a paragraph’s timecode to move the playhead to the start of that paragraph. Unlike a click on a word, this doesn’t change the selection.

A selected clip scrolls to its words

Click a clip, on the timeline or the canvas, while the Transcript shows. The tab stays, and the clip’s first word scrolls to the top. The playhead doesn’t move.

For a nest clip, that’s the first word inside the nest. A clip with no words in the tab scrolls nothing.

Loop plays the selected words

Whatever you select in the text becomes the in/out range, so Loop can play it. Use it to hear a cut before you make it.

Select the words: drag across them, or click the first and ⇧-click the last.
Turn on Loop, the repeat button in the toolbar.
Press Space.

Change the selection and the next pass plays the new range. ⎋ clears the selection and the range with it, and Loop then goes round the whole timeline.

With an agent

get_timeline_transcript gives each word’s time on the timeline, and set_playhead moves the playhead there.